Saturday, October 16, 2010

3129 Woman of La Mancha

Saturday, October 16, 2010

"The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore."
-- Samuel Butler --

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I'd never read Don Quixote de la Mancha or seen the 1972 movie Man of La Mancha, but the movie is on TV right now. I accidentally found it a half hour in, and I'm sort of watching it between doing everything else. It stars Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren.

I absolutely love La Loren! I don't know whether she's a decent actress or not (she has won many best actress awards, so I guess so), and don't care. I've always thought, since the first time I saw her in the late '50s, that she was possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

She has such a strong face. Strong nose. Strong jaw line. Strong chin. So different from the soft pudding pots considered beautiful today. That lower lip was full long before filler injections existed.
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Friday, October 15, 2010

3128 Chilean mine rescue

Thursday, October 15, 2010

Those who live by the sword, get shot by those who don't.

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Boston.com has photos from the mine rescue. Most of them we've seen on TV, but there is one photo from a camera on the top of the capsule, looking up the tube. I wish they had more photos showing what it was like in that tunnel.

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Since this is my diary, I'm going to start noting where I am when I post, NJ or NY. It may be important at tax time, since I now have two "primary residences". I don't think two is allowed.

NJ Wednesday and Thursday nights.

NY tonight.
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3127 I'm in the house

Friday, October 15, 2010

He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

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I'm writing this from the new house. It'll be quick, because I have to get back up the river before Jasper chews his way into the pantry.

The builder's lawyer finally came up with the total I needed for the cashier's check at 10:30 am on Wednesday. I had to leave by 11 am to go to my bank, get the check, and make it down here for closing, with no time to spare. That means there was no time for a final walkthrough, which made me very unhappy.

The closing went ok on Wednesday, except that the builder absolutely refused to do anything about the poor grading on the north side of the yard. My lawn is a foot higher than the neighbor's lawn, butted against a wire fence which the builder folks apparently thought would serve as a retaining wall. Soil is, of course, already washing through the fence onto the neighbor's flower bed. Regrading would require another county/township inspection, and he refuses. Oh, well. To be addressed between me and the neighbor sometime later.

I stayed here Wednesday night and last night. Wednesday night the heat didn't go on. The fan blew, but it was blowing cold air. It got down to 57 degrees by morning. I do not do cold well! A call to the builder Thursday morning produced his furnace man, who found that the gas valve at the furnaces hadn't been opened. (I did have hot water and stove....)

I vacuumed, mopped, did some other puttering around. Shopped for necessities, including a washer and dryer. I discovered that what I thought was spackle dust on the living room floor is actually a very fine paint spray, that scrubbing with a scrubby sponge won't remove. A very nice clerk in Home Depot said "Goof Off" would do it, and we even tested it on store samples of my flooring to verify that it wouldn't remove the finish. So that's the next job.

I was right to wait until I spent a day here before choosing paint colors. The pale mauve I liked for the living room is beautiful in the morning, but gets depressing in the afternoon. A light peach worked better. I have chips stuck to the walls everywhere, have pretty much settled on all the downstairs chips, and two upstairs.

I need to get the mailbox planted, and the lawn mowed. Maybe Monday.

Back upriver now.
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Wednesday, October 13, 2010

3126 HOTW - Isaiah Mustafa

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

"There are only two races, the decent and the indecent."
-- Viktor Frankl --

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Honey of the Week - Isaiah Mustafa, a.k.a. The Old Spice Guy. The commercials just won an Emmy. I love his voice, and his tongue-in-cheek delivery.





See also my earlier post at http://thesilkentouch.blogspot.com/2010/07/3025-want-want-gimme.html

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P.S. It is now 9 am. I have to leave here by 11 am to make it to the house closing. I STILL have no idea how much the cashier's check should be. And the lawyer expects me to pay him?
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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

3125 Facebook and Me

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

"It is not hard to succeed professionally.
What is hard is to succeed with your integrity intact."
-- Dennis Prager --

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I mentioned a while ago that I was banned from Facebook.

I had built a profile way back when it was still sort of newish, and put a few photos out there, and then discovered that in posting the photos, I shared the copyright with Facebook, and they could do anything they wanted with my photos. So I deleted them, and then found out that deleting them meant only that other users couldn't see them, but that Facebook retained them. So I attempted to delete the entire profile, and found out that Facebook still retained the info.

I got pissed. I insisted that Facebook delete everything I had ever put out there. They said ok, but then didn't. So I threatened to sue. Then I discovered that in Canada a class action suit had been filed, practically the same day I made my threat, over pretty much the same issue.

Facebook's response was ok, done, all your info is deleted. I don't know if it was or not, but one thing that did happen was that when I attempted to go to Facebook later to visit someone else's profile, or attempted to create a new clean profile for myself with no photos or personal information, I got an error message saying that I was not allowed, that I was not qualified.

They knew it was me, were able to recognize my name, my address, my email address, and my laptop - I tried various combinations of fakes. I guess they weren't happy about the thought of another lawsuit, and I was banned.

I figured out that they had planted cookies on my computer, and had retained my other identifying information, and that's how they knew it was me. I deleted the cookies, created another email id, and set up a Facebook profile under an assumed name. (Ya gotta have one these days, because there are online businesses whose only website is on Facebook.)

That was at least two years ago. Turns out they still don't delete stuff. See this article: http://www.switched.com/2010/10/12/deleted-facebook-photos-arent-really-deleted/

They can identify people they don't like by planting cookies and remembering names and email addresses, but they don't know how to delete things?

It's amusing that they claim it's the nature of the beast - that it's like how when you delete a file on your hard drive the data is actually still there. Yes, that's true. When you delete from your hard drive, the file is still there, all that happens is that the pointer in the directory is zeroed out, so you can't find it by disk, folder, and filename, but if you have the actual hardware cylinder, track, and record number (or whatever the equivalent is in today's storage scheme), you can still access it, unless and until that segment of the disk, which is free space, is reused by another file. If you want to absolutely delete something, you have to specifically overwrite the disk space occupied by the file, using the hardware location, and the average user does not have that capability. But that's not what's going on here.

The difference is that with the hard disk example, once deleted you need the hardware location to get to it - the disk id, folder name, and file name won't find it because they don't exist any more in the directory. Facebook is trying to pretend that knowing the URL is the same as knowing the hardware address.

It isn't. The URL *is* analogous to and uses the directory entry! So they have made NO attempt to delete the photo even by such simple means as deleting the directory entry and freeing up the disk space. They simply deleted profile links to it.

THAT IS NOT DELETION!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They still retain easy access to it for themselves.
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3124 Moving Along

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Definition: Treppenwitz - "the wit of the stairway," used to describe
brilliant comebacks one thinks of only long after
the moment for saying them has passed.

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Sunday I attended Becs' party in a riverside park in NJ. Of the blogger bunch, The Queen was there, and Reality Check Woman, and Becs, of course, and me. Daughter and Hercules also showed up, and a bunch of Becs' friends, relatives, and coworkers. A good time was had by all, and there was so much food that no dish, no matter how good, was more than 1/4 eaten. Amazing. Becs is going to be living on cheese, cake, and crudites for a month!

I scarfed the following photo from The Queen's blog. I'm sure she won't mind, but I couldn't resist because it may be the best photo of me in the past umpteen years. I won't tell you who is who, but one is me, one is Becs, one is The Queen, and one is Hercules. (Sheesh - my nose is BIG! The Queen and Becs have such little buttons on elfin faces. But it's still a durn good photo. The Queen directed that the photo be taken from high, so we were all looking up. It works! (Please don't tell me it doesn't look like me.))

Sunday evening I met with The Man, and Monday I signed the papers for homeowner's insurance on the new house. Today my lawyer finally told me what time the closing is tomorrow, but he still doesn't have the numbers for the check I have to bring. I also made a bunch of calls and got the gas, water, sewer, garbage, and electric service started in my name (as of tomorrow).

I have a rolled-up futon in the van, and intend to sleep in the new house tomorrow night.

The driveway does look a bit odd, but I asked for a double-wide driveway because a) I right now have three vehicles, and b) the street is narrow, and I don't want to ask guests to park on the street. Between the garage and the driveway, I can safely accommodate five cars.

If you click on the house photo you might notice that the rightmost piece of porch railing isn't straight - the uprights aren't parallel to the tall posts. That will be mentioned at closing tomorrow, along with a few other things.
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